SAM Organization for Rights and Liberties issued its annual briefing entitled “Year of Stagnation” today, Monday, January 29, 2023. The briefing includes the most important events and violations that took place in 2022.

The organization said it documented more than 4000 human rights violations in Yemen. These include the violation of right to life, assault on the right to physical integrity, arbitrary detention, and torture, as well as the restrictions on political and press freedoms and personal and civil liberties, from January 1 until late December 2022.

The organization confirmed that these violations constituted an addition to the volume of violations documented in recent years, and their geographical scope included the Republic of Yemen. The organization added this was a disastrous result of the parties to the war ignoring international humanitarian law, human rights law, and the principles and customs applied during the war. The principle of impunity also contributed to the exacerbation of these violations, along with the silence of the international community on the adoption of an international mechanism to investigate these violations which threaten the lives of civilians. Consequently, all of this tempted the parties to the war in Yemen to continue to perpetrate more violations.

The annual briefing highlighted the most prominent parties that committed these violations, which amount to war crimes and they are: first, the Iran-backed Houthi group, the “de facto authority”, which has been in control of the capital, Sana'a, since 2014, and the legitimate government that declared the city of Aden its interim capital. Second: The Arab Coalition led by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Third: the armed groups loyal to the Arab Coalition, the “Southern Transitional Council,” the West Coast Forces, or the so-called “National Resistance.” The violations committed by these parties caused a loss of safety among citizens and a significant deterioration in public services, in addition to poor living conditions and deprivation of individuals of their fundamental rights.

The human rights organization highlighted detailed figures of the extent of these violations during the year 2022, the most notable of which is its monitoring of "4015" violations during the year 2022, distributed as follows: (767) violations of the right to life, (1744) injuries, and (586) violations against civil objects.  SAM also monitored (130) violations of digital rights during the period (May-December 2022).

The briefing also included numbers and statistics of the activities carried out by the SAM organization during the year 2022, as the briefing confirmed the implementation of more than 210 human rights activities, which included the issuance of 14 human rights reports covering many pivotal issues during the year, the issuance of 110 statements that accompanied many of the events and violations in 2022, the issuance of one human rights study, holding 7 seminars that hosted many experts and specialists in the field of human rights, in addition to holding 8 coordination and introductory meetings with human rights organizations and activists.

“2022” was full of hope and pain, as the parties continued to violate international humanitarian law without any deterrence or scruples, in light of the continued absence of criminal accountability, which they were reassured of its continued absence,” said Tawfiq Al-Hamidi, head of SAM Organization for Rights and Liberties. He added, “the year also witnessed popular optimism after the declaration of a truce and a decrease in the level of the military operation, in the hope of reaching a comprehensive solution to the ceasefire.”

The briefing included the most important political events related to human rights in 2022, the most important of which is the formation of the Presidential Leader Council in the capital, Riyadh, on April 7, 2022, and the military confrontations in Shabwa.

The briefing also included statistics revealing the extent of violations, and examples of violations that perpetrated during the past year, such as the right to life, the use of mines, arbitrary arrest, torture, forced recruitment, unfair trials, the economic situation, and the impact of climate on human rights. The organization also discussed the impact of the climate on human rights in Yemen and the humanitarian and economic situation during the past year